Laurelhurst, and Thoughts On 2 Colors

I am still getting the knack for my lightbox. I have some umbrella lights on order that I wish to pete would ship already, because I think they'll help me with those last few shadows and color correction. Photographic styling issues aside, I'm pleased with the way the Bison Sock yarn is turning out. I have had lots of interest in the yarn itself, so I'm curious to see how it feels to people once they've knit it up.
My own Bison Sock test knit in Heliotrope is ready for a rinse and then wearing. I didn't do anything more than a boring 64 stitch vanilla sock with a long cuff and leg to see what I could get from a single hank. I put in a few eyelets at the top, but decided speed was more interesting than pattern. The finished sock is soft with a sturdy feel to it that I think will be lovely to wear long-term. I'm very impressed with the plying structure - 6 very skinny ones - and I think I may use this yarn as a template when I get around to asking a mill to reformulate and customize Trinity for me.
Sock knitting has ahold of me again, and I feel a tad guilty. I've had such little time to knit in the last six months that having all of these finished socks to show off seems luxurious and a bit sinful. I went straight from testing Bison Sock to knitting Star Athena's March installment of Stumptown Knits, Laurelhurst. It isn't just that Star's patterns are fabulous, or that she's a dear friend and fellow Portlander, or that she named this latest pattern after a park my elder son has a myriad of good memories from, or that I want to support designers that feature my yarns in their patterns. It's all of these things that finally made me realize I was shirking responsibility quite a lot and so I signed up for the pattern club for the second year in a row. What sealed the deal, dear knitters, was the fact that these socks are knit using two colors of yarn but without making you hold two colors at once very often. Pattern printed, I dug up two skeins of Caper Sock from String Theory (in Mt. Hood and an unknown purple) and got to work.
The thing that nags at me when I'm in the sun room winding yarn to be sold is that my stash sits there, day after day, unused. All sealed up in bags inside bins to ensure a pest-free zone for ALL the yarn, the lovely colors wait for some attention. I worship good color. If you peruse my stash, you might notice most of my sock yarn is done by hand-dyers. But truthfully, I will never manage to knit all that fabulous color! Unless...
When I dug around my prodigious collection of STR, mostly I found things with green or pink, or both. Finding contrasting yarns was tough. When I pulled out Quinault Canopy and Rhodonite, I was pretty sure they would look awful together. Lo and behold, my sense of contrasting yarns was wrong. Oh wait, that's what happens to me every time I choose two-color projects...maybe it needs to be my new rule.
If you're feeling the need to do some 2-color socks (like Laurelhurst, or Material Progress, Cool Beans, Jongleurs, Dark Isle, or any of the other numerous lovlies available) here are some of my new Etsy listings in Pebble Sock:
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Black Trillium Fibre Studio started in 2008 as a small venture in an apartment kitchen. Melanie Dilworth, the dyer and chief mischief-maker behind Black Trillium currently runs the business from a small studio outside of Portland, Oregon. We dye in small batches on exclusively milled yarn substrates, taking care to make our unique colors as wearable and as long-lasting as possible. It is important to us to maintain the integrity of a small, community-based and family-run company, so while we believe growth is good we pride ourselves on quality over quantity, service and commitment over omnipresence.

Since 2012, we've been dyeing unique, high quality gradient yarn. Our process and formulas were developed completely in-house and because of our popularity today you can see many dyers imitating our products and colors. We love to see the variety and interpretations of color theory and welcome all comers to the challenge of creating a beautiful and authentic yarns. When it comes to the best and brightest, you can be sure that Black Trillium Fibres' Gradient Yarns are where it's at. We maintain 60 different gradient yarn colors at all times, restocking as the schedule allows.